The Stolen - Jason Pinter [28]
"Sounds like a delicious colon-cleansing meal."
"Yeah, it's, uh...it's really tasty." I tried to stifle a laugh.
"Dude, if I don't get, like, something that used to moo in
my system soon, I'm gonna start pissing soy beans."
"I do owe you a meal or two, but I'll own up later. I got
a question for you. When you're investigating a disturbance, what happens if it's a false alarm? Like a burglary
or break-in is reported, but when the boys in blue show up
there's no evidence of anything illegal?"
"It's investigated, man. Every one. Can't say they spend
a ton of time on it, but you gotta make sure it was a false
alarm. God forbid it turns out you just missed a clue or
someone really needed help and you left instead of lifting a
finger."
"That's what I thought."
"What's this about, bro?"
"Not sure yet. I have a few questions about the Daniel
Linwood disappearance that nobody's in a rush to answer."
"Kid who got kidnapped then dropped out of the sky,
right?"
"That's the one."
"I feel for that family, man. Nobody deserves to go
through that. My mom used to hyperventilate if I came
home half an hour late from school, let alone five years.
Good luck, Henry. If anyone's gonna get those answers it's
you, you tunnel-visioned asshole. And hey, don't forget
about your tab. Steak and a beer within the week."
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"You can count on it."
I hung up and ordered a pizza to be delivered to Curt's
house. I just hoped he'd finish it before Gloria got home,
otherwise he wouldn't be around long enough for me to
repay the rest of the tab.
There had to be more to the Linwood story. Something
I'd missed, perhaps. Something in Daniel's voice, his
word, his cadences.
I took the tape recorder from my desk, rewound the tape
and pushed Play. I listened to the whole tape again. And
when it was finished, I was pretty sure I'd discovered one
pretty big question. Not to mention an explanation as to why
I was confused by certain aspects of Danny's statements.
One huge question had been asked by Danny Linwood
himself. Only the boy didn't even know he was asking it.
8
Paulina Cole forwarded three e-mails to her assistant,
James Keach, then turned off her computer and put on her
Burberry trenchcoat. James had asked several times if he
could leave for the day, but each time Paulina answered
him by not answering him--ignoring him was her favorite
form of communication--and he soon slunk back to the
cubicle zoo where the other peons sat and stewed. It had
become somewhat of an amusing ritual. At the end of each
day Paulina would send whatever hate mail she received
to James, who would make copies for three departments:
Human Resources, Public Relations and the Dispatch's
editor-in-chief, Ted Allen. Paulina had requested the
Dispatch print her e-mail address at the end of every
column. She invited readers to write in, and in fact went
home depressed on the days where she got no hate mail.
Pissed-off folks tended to be more vocal than satisfied
ones, so the next day she would try even harder to kneel
on the public's pressure points.
She sent the e-mails to HR because it was mandated by
corporate. PR wanted it in case any public figures wrote
in. Ted Allen demanded it because he liked nothing more
than employing a reporter who so riled up readers that they
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Jason Pinter
took time out of their busy (or tragically not busy) day to
pen her a missive so vile that they would tell all their
friends to buy the paper to see what that bitch wrote.
When the media reporter for the New York Gazette had
questioned Paulina's ethics in reporting on a congressman she'd allegedly had a romantic liaison with years
back, Cole responded in her column questioning the
reporter's manhood. More specifically, she stated her
doubt that his manhood was longer than his pencil's eraser.
Both she and Ted had gotten a kick out of it, and HR
needed a new folder to house all the letters she received.
Naturally, the paper sold 50,000 more copies that day than
the previous one, and her story was linked to